A Whateley Academy Adventure

-Of Pranks and Finals

by

Morpheus, Domoviye, Fiddlerfox, and Amethyst

 

Part One

 

Morpheus
Crystal Hall, Monday morning, Dec 10th, 2007

The Imp took a sip of coffee then listlessly poked at the fruit on her plate. She’d eaten a few bites of breakfast but just didn’t have much appetite. She absently mused about how unfortunate it was that the cafeteria didn’t have any lasagna at the moment, not that she would have really eaten that either. However, if she had a big piece of lasagna on her plate, it would make it a lot more amusing to complain about how much she hated Mondays.

“Are you okay?” a voice asked, momentarily distracting Imp from her thoughts.

“What?” she asked, looking at the young woman who’d asked her the question.

Maria Ricardo was her neighbor in the village as well as another rookie teacher at the school. The two of them were eating breakfast together as they often did, though the Imp had almost forgotten the other woman was even there that morning.

“You seem a little…distracted,” Maria pointed out.

Imp nodded, then flashed a smile that she didn’t feel. “Just a bit tired. It was a rough weekend…” Then her grin widened. “You know how it is…one party after another.”

Maria chuckled at that. “I’ll take your word for it, but this week won’t exactly be relaxing either.”

“Oh?” Imp responded curiously.

Maria rolled her eyes and then shook her head. “The combat finals. They’re this week, remember?”

The Imp’s eyes widened slightly and her grin returned, this time more real. “You know, I almost forgot about that…”

“The students are going to be pretty distracted,” Mara told her in a knowing tone. “I imagine that most of the faculty will be too…”

The former supervillain flicked her tail, eagerly accepting this distraction from her sour mood. “If I remember right, the theme is some kind of snatch and grab…” She shrugged. “No one really told me the details…”

Just then, a new figure appeared at the table. One moment the seat was empty, and the next, Louis Geintz was sitting there, or at least his astral projection was since his physical body was still in his tank beneath Hawthorne.

“Good morning, ladies,” Louis greeted them. There was a plate of pancakes in front of him which was every bit the illusion as his body. He made a show of cutting into the projected pancakes and taking a bite.

“Louis,” Imp responded with a nod of acknowledgement.

“Buenos dias,” Maria added her own greeting. “We were just talking about the combat finals.”

“A popular topic of conversation this morning,” Louis commented with a chuckle.

Maria nodded her agreement. “They’re always fun to watch…though not quite as much as actually being in them.”

“I’ll take your word for that,” Imp told her with an enthusiastic flick of her tail. “But I am looking forward to this… I’m teaching an urban escape and evasion class next month, for winter term, so this will give me a better idea of what I have to work with.”

Louise paused for a moment and stared at the Imp. “You wouldn’t be considering the idea of sneaking into one of these finals and having a bit of fun of your own, would you?”

“Of course not,” the Imp quickly responded, giving him a look of mock offense, though her broad grin made her denial less convincing. Then her expression turned more serious and she added, “But there are several students that I’m especially interested in watching.”

“I know what you mean,” Maria agreed with a thoughtful expression. “And those matches are always the most exciting.”

Morpheus
Monday morning, Dec 10th, 2007

Doug Kelly stepped into the arena and slowly stretched his muscles, then he made a show of swinging his massive sword. It was seven feet long and nearly two feet wide, far too large and unwieldy for most people to ever use, but his power to manipulate things like gravity, momentum, and inertia meant that he could handle it with ease. This was a fact that he loved to demonstrate whenever possible.

“BROADSWORD AND GEIST,” then a voice called out from somewhere overhead. “YOU MAY BEGIN.”

“Showtime,” Doug announced, casually propping the oversized sword over his shoulder and walking forward into the zombie apocalypse.

Doug finally looked around at his surroundings, noticing for the first time that he was indoors. There was a ceiling overhead. Far overhead. It looked like he was in some kind of warehouse with hundreds of large wooden crates stacked up around him.

A second later, Doug heard a low growl that made him think that there was a guard dog nearby. He wasn’t worried about any dogs, no matter how vicious. But then the dog appeared from around the corner of a wooden crate and one look at it was enough to make Doug rethink his opinion on how dangerous it might be. It looked like a giant rottweiler which stood four feet high at the shoulders. However, what was even more fearsome was the fact that large parts of its body were missing, revealing flesh and bones. This wasn’t just a guard dog, this was a ZOMBIE guard dog.

“Good doggy,” Doug called out in a gentle tone. “Are you a good boy?” In response, the zombie dog charged straight at Doug, its mouth already open to take a bite. “I guess not.”

Doug swung his sword and sliced the zombie dog completely in two. The half that contained the still intact head continued to twitch and move, though it was no longer much of a threat. Still, the sight was disturbing so Doug brought his blade down again, this time removing the head. That was enough to make it cease moving entirely.

“Bad dog,” Doug said, feeling guilty over having killed a dog, even though he knew intellectually that it wasn’t even a real dog and never had been. It was just some kind of robot made to look like a zombie dog. “That is totally messed up. Stupid final…”

Unfortunately, it wasn’t over yet. In fact, this was only the beginning of Doug’s combat final so there was about to be more messed-up stuff ahead. He just hoped that he didn’t have to kill any more dogs because that was just too much for any dog lover.

The zombie dog hadn’t been alone, as Doug quickly noticed. Four more zombies appeared, all running towards him. These were all human zombies, much to his relief. Three of them were dressed up in coveralls and jumpsuits, looking like they’d probably worked in the warehouse, while the last one was wearing a security guard uniform.

Doug swung his sword at the first zombie to reach him, easily slicing him in half. Normally, with a sword that large and heavy, the momentum from the swing would force the sword to keep moving in that direction, dragging the wielder along with it and leaving them open to attack from the other side. However, Doug’s power changed that and as soon as his sword passed through the zombie, it came to a sudden stop and then shifted back into movement the other way, allowing him to catch the two zombies that had been trying to sneak up on him. With one more swing of his sword, the fourth zombie went down as well.

Once Doug was sure that there were no more zombies in sight, he smirked and took a bit of a pose, casually holding his sword over his shoulder. He knew that there were people watching his final, and he was sure that he’d just looked really awesome while fighting those zombies. There was no doubt in his mind that he’d impressed the audience, and if he played his cards right during the rest of the final, he’d especially impress some of the ladies.

A quick walk through the warehouse revealed no more zombies, nor anything else of interest, though Doug did find a door out. When he left the large warehouse space, he found himself outside but in a narrow alley. That kind of placement didn’t make any sense to him, but he didn’t bother worrying bout it. After all, this wasn’t a real place, just the setting for what was effectively a realistic video game.

“But this is kind of boring,” Doug mused as he walked down the alley. “You need to be a bit more impressive if you want to keep the audience watching…” He chuckled to himself. “Fortunately, I’m good at that…”

Doug had barely uttered those words when he heard growling and hissing from ahead of him. More zombies appeared, coming from around a corner and rushing straight towards him. These were more of the human zombies, much to his relief. Killing them was a lot less creepy than taking out a dog, no matter how big and ugly it was. But unfortunately, there were nearly a dozen zombies this time, though Doug had a hard time counting them since they were crowded so tightly into the alley.

“Come and get some,” Doug called out in challenge, raising his sword for another fight…until he suddenly realized a problem. The alley walls were too close and he didn’t have room to swing his sword. “Oh, crud…”

Doug held his sword and began backing away, growing more worried as the zombies quickly reached him. If he couldn’t swing his sword, then he couldn’t fight…

“I can’t go down like this,” Doug muttered, desperately trying to think of a way out.

Then the first zombie in this new group reached Doug and practically ran right into his sword. He continued holding his sword out, realizing suddenly that while he couldn’t swing his sword, that didn’t mean it was useless. In fact, his sword was wide enough that if he held it with the blade horizontal, the zombies would have a hard time getting around it, even if he just held it steady. A cocky grin formed on his lips.

Doug made sure that his sword was held firmly in front of him, the flat of the blade facing the ground. The zombies in front tried getting around the blade, but there wasn’t much room and all he had to do was gently swing it a foot or two in each direction to block them. Once he was more confident in his defense, he stepped forward and sliced into the lead zombie, then into the one behind it.

One by one, the zombies went down. They could have run away or even ducked down and tried going beneath his sword, but none of the zombies seemed to think of these things. In fact, they seemed completely mindless, focused entirely on charging right at him. In an open area, they might have been able to surround him and overwhelm him with sheer numbers, but in this alley… As long as none came up behind him, all he had to do was just keep moving forward and he’d cut through anything in his way.

“This is pretty easy,” Doug mused, “but I still have to win this thing…”

It didn’t take him long to push through the small zombie horde, and then to reach the four-way intersection where the zombies had come from. He looked down each of the paths, but wherever he looked, all he saw was more alley with no way out. He scowled at that since he was going to have a hard time winning his combat final if he couldn’t even find his way out of this maze.

Before Doug could decide which path to use, he noticed a couple zombies coming from the left while three of them appeared in the path straight ahead. His eyes widened as he realized the trap that he’d nearly walked right into. No matter which of these paths he used, zombies could come from any of the others and get him from behind. So, even though Doug hated the idea of retreating, he backed up down the path he’d come from, the one he’d already cleared. That only left the zombies coming at him from the front.

He dealt with the new enemies the same way that he’d finished off the last group, by letting them all line up in front of him and then simply pushing forward. But once that group had been dealt with, he was back to the same problem of which path to take…and which one would be the least likely to have enemies coming up behind him. While looking back and forth between each of the paths, Doug looked up at the sky and sighed.

“There’s…no ceiling,” he said in realization. He was in an alley, not a hallway. That meant that meant that there was nothing to block him from going up instead.

Doug dropped his sword onto the ground and then stepped on it as though it was a surfboard. A moment later, his feet became fixed in place, courtesy of his powers, and the whole sword began to float up into the air. In just a couple seconds, he’d gone up to the second story and then to the roof level. He continued to rise until he was high enough up to get a good look at the arena and the maze he’d been traveling through. From his new perspective, he could see that all three of the paths would have taken him where he needed to go, though each one seemed to be a different length. Going straight would have been the shortest of the paths.

“And there we go,” Doug mused as he looked at the center of the arena, at a large open park area where all three of the alley paths eventually ended.

The floating sword moved forward at Doug’s mental command, carrying him closer to the park. He looked down at his destination, taking in the details and trying to decide what he needed to do. The park was mostly covered with grass and had the usual playground equipment, but there was also a small parking lot to the side with a couple cars. A road left from the parking lot, heading off into the distance.

What really drew Doug’s attention wasn’t the park itself, but the things that wouldn’t normally belong there. There were over two dozen zombies scattered around, three of whom were huge, over eight feet tall and bulging with muscle. Those had to be the boss monsters, the extra tough ones. Doug nodded approvingly, knowing that it would look pretty awesome when he took down those ones.

Right in the very center of the park, a helicopter sat on the ground. It was smoking and looked like it had been badly damaged, maybe even having been shot down. And standing on the ground beside the helicopter was a man, one who looked like a living human rather than a zombie. He was holding a large glass vial with a glowing green liquid, and he seemed completely unconcerned with the zombies, who were completely ignoring him.

“And THAT is the target,” Doug exclaimed with a broad grin. All he had to do was take that glowing bottle to the drop-off spot and he’d win the final. “Just like in a video game…”

Then Doug suddenly noticed something else that was out of place. A girl was running across the park, straight towards the helicopter. She was about fourteen, had auburn hair, and wore a bright blue mask that covered the top half of her face. He immediately recognized Geist, his opponent in the combat final.

Geist abruptly stopped and just stood there while zombies ran right at her. The first zombie reached her and went right through her as though she wasn’t even there while four more zombies quickly jumped on her as well, burying her in a virtual pile of zombies. At first, Doug had been worried, until he realized that Geist wasn’t even there. That had just been an illusion while the real Geist was somewhere nearby, invisible while she projected her image elsewhere instead.

“Where is she…?” Doug started to ask, only to notice that the man by the helicopter was no longer holding the glowing bottle. A moment later, Geist’s image ran out from the pile of zombies while now holding the glowing bottle. “She got it first…”

Doug scowled in annoyance, though his expression quickly turned to a cocky grin instead. Geist may have gotten to the target first, but he hadn’t really even entered the game. It was time for him to make a dramatic entrance, which was one of his favorite things to do.

With that, Doug began a move that he’d practiced countless times. He and his sword flipped in the air while gravity began to reassert control over them, then he grabbed his sword’s hilt and began pulling it into an overhead swing as he fell. A couple seconds later, he came down right in front of a giant zombie, leading with his blade. It hit the top of the zombie’s head and passed clean through it, completely slicing the monster in two. Doug’s fall abruptly stopped just an inch from the ground, all the momentum completely and harmlessly neutralized. He dropped the last inch while the two zombie halves toppled over in opposite directions.

“Yeah, I did that,” Doug exclaimed, taking a pose to show off how awesome he was. The zombies weren’t impressed. “Now, where is she…?”

The mutant swordsman looked around and immediately spotted Geist, or at least, her image. The zombies were chasing after her image as she ran towards the road and the drop-off location, but Doug knew that the real Geist was still invisible. He scanned the area but saw no sign of where she was really at, which made him suddenly realize how difficult it would be to find her. He could run around, swinging his sword at random in the hopes of running into her that way, but then he’d just end up looking like some kind of idiot. And besides, he really didn’t like the idea of hitting a girl with his sword anyway, even if he only used the flat of his blade.

“No good,” he grumbled to himself. There was no way he could find Geist in time, not without the risk of injuring her and looking like some kind of lunatic. “She isn’t even at the drop-off and she’s already as good as won…”

For a moment, Doug just stood there, feeling a little depressed at his early loss in this match, until he remembered that there was more than one way to win. In the superhero world, the person who defeats a supervillain isn’t always the only hero on the scene. Sometimes, the person who stops the doomsday weapon from going off, or who protects civilians from getting hurt in the crossfire, could be every bit as important. Doug’s big brother had told him that on several occasions.

“Okay,” Doug told himself. “I can’t win, but maybe I can earn some credit with an assist…”

Doug took a deep breath, then used his powers to fling himself across the park and towards the road, almost as if he was riding on his sword. However, he had his sword out and sliced a second giant zombie in two before he shifted the momentum and came to an abrupt stop. This sudden attack drew the attention of all the nearby zombies, except for two who continued to follow Geist’s image.

“HEY, GEIST,” Doug yelled out to his opponent. “I’LL CLEAR THE WAY FOR YOU SO YOU CAN GET THAT CURE DELIVERED! IT'S UP TO YOU TO END THIS APOCALYPSE!” Then he grinned to himself and added to himself, “Oh yeah, a nice heroic sacrifice… I bet this will really impress all the girls…”

With that, Doug shifted his gravity again and flung himself back up into the air. When he reached the right point, he shifted gravity again and then came back down, swinging his sword over his head much like he’d done earlier. He landed right behind the third and last giant zombie, slicing it through from head to groin in a single strike. Even as the two halves collapsed to the ground, he was already swinging his sword and cutting through two more zombies. He cleared much of the road, making it easier for Geist to slip through without accidentally running into any enemies, and he continued tearing through the oncoming horde until the alarm sounded that the match was over.

“And that’s it,” Doug announced, looking around as the few remaining zombies collapsed to the ground like puppets whose strings had been cut.

Doug casually held his sword over his shoulder and began strutting towards the arena exit with a cocky grin on his face, looking almost as if he was the one who’d won the combat final. Sure, he might not have technically won, not ever having touched the cure much less delivered it to the drop-off, but he’d fought off a horde of zombies and looked awesome while doing so. As far as Doug was concerned, that still counted as a victory.

Domoviye
Monday morning, Dec 10th, 2007

Tink and her friends sat right at one of the best spots for watching the Combat Finals in the whole arena. A few students, the older and tougher ones usually, had come along with mean looks ready to make the upstart freshmen move, only to see Tink sitting on Mary's head like it was her own personal throne. The would-be usurpers quickly decided that there were better places to sit. Even if they could probably beat the crazy fairy in a fight, she was nuts and had a reputation for not going down easy. Good seats weren't worth the risk of possibly losing to a freshmen, especially a 6-inch tall freshman, getting detention for brawling, and definitely spilling their drinks and snacks.

“That last fight was so cool. Did you see those zombies? I wonder how far I can throw one?!” Tink babbled. “I hope I get a really good fight, it would be really bad if I got an easy fight like against Drama Queen or some other loser. Trixie would be a fun opponent, but I'd probably end up stinking for a week afterwards. Maybe I can fight Lancer, or Ribbon, or Bloodwolf, or Maggot. They're all tough enough to be a challenge.”

Fetch tossed a piece of chocolate to his materialized spirit dog, Mutt, who caught it with a thankful little woof. “I just hope they don't have me fighting some jerk like Iron or Rottie.”

“Or Pin Cushion,” Samson said with a shudder. The blond boy was currently in his smaller size, which only made him six feet tall and built like an NFL linebacker.

“I wish they'd let me stay out of it. I really don't want to hurt anyone,” Horizon said, hugging herself.

Patting her on the back, Fetch smiled encouragingly. “Don't worry, you've gotten really good with your power, and you won't hurt anyone with towels, ropes and nets.”

“Hush, they're about to say who the next pair are,” Mary said, raising a grey and black hand to get their attention.

“Will Samson and Peccary come to the gate,” the computer said.

Samson closed his eyes and took a breath, “Wish me luck,” he said, getting to his feet.

While everyone cheered him on, Tink listened to the boring announcers talking on and on, being really boring about it. She suddenly got a really good idea. “Come on Mary!” she shouted, grabbing her roommate’s hand.

“Wha- AAAHHHHH!” Mary screamed as she suddenly found herself flying at high speed above the audience, heading who knew where.

They came to a stop just outside the studio, where the announcers worked their magic. While Mary rubbed her shoulder which felt a lot looser than it had a moment ago, Tink threw open the door and charged in.

Samson was halfway to the gate when he heard a commotion over the speakers. When he realized what it was, he facepalmed.

“Hey, what are you doing in here?” one of the announcers asked.

“You've been fired for being too boring. I'm taking over,” Tink said.

“You can't do that!” the other announcer shouted.

There was the sound of scuffling, with some yelps and squawks of outrage, then silence.

“Tink, what are you doing?!” Mary shouted.

“Hello Whateley!” Tink shouted a little too loudly into the mic. “I'm Tink with my partner B, we're going to be the announcers from now on, or until lunch. Now B, please give us the rundown on our two opponents.”

“... We're going to be in so much trouble over this,” Mary said.

“Thank you for the wonderful rundown, B. I'll take it from here.”

Shaking his head, Samson kept walking, hoping Tink wouldn't get in too much trouble. As he walked he made his manifested shell larger. His real body curled up into a ball inside his torso, protected by two metal sheets and a roll of Kevra that he stored inside his fake body. He could feel his hold outs stored in other parts of his ectoplasm body, a taser hidden in his forearm, handcuffs and duct tape in thigh, his club in his pelvis, and a few other things that could be useful. It was a bit crowded when he was smaller, but it made him feel safe having everything with him.

When he reached the gate Peccary was already there. The sophomore was just as heavily muscled as he was, even though Samson towered over the smaller student. The most noticeable thing about Peccary was the pig head, which hung low giving him a hunched over appearance. It actually took attention away from his pig-like legs and hooves and overly long, hairy arms. Samson didn't know anything about the boy, but it looked like he wouldn't have to worry about any long-range attacks.

The Gunny was there looking as angry as ever. He started going over the rules of the combat final, what to do in an emergency, and then the mission goal. Samson listened carefully and nodded whenever it seemed appropriate. He hoped he wouldn't embarrass himself in front of everyone, especially Fetch.

“And here come our competitors!” Tink shouted into the microphone, unknowingly making many people in the audience wince. “The massive Samson looks as intimidating as ever, increasing to his full size of just over eight feet tall, and he's going with the biker look in his leather jacket, dusty jeans, and motorcycle helmet. Towering over the pedestrians, he's looking for that magical zombie elixir.”

Turning to look at the other monitor she hurriedly tried to think about what to say about Peccary. “Now the competitor, the pig-headed Peccary!”

“You can't call him that Tink!” Mary said.

“What? He's got a pig head!”

“Still you should be nicer.”

“OK, you introduce him, B,” Tink said, motioning for her to use the other mic.

Mary's cheeks turned a cute pinkish grey, marred by the pitch black cracks running across her face. But the normally shy girl leaned in and started talking. “Um, uh, Peccary is an avatar and he looks really tough in his leather vest and metal helmet which is shaped to fit his face. It's not a really great disguise, but when you look like he does, disguises are kind of silly. Anyways, he's sniffing the air. I think I heard his eyesight isn't very good, but his hearing and sense of smell are superhuman or nearly so. He seems to have smelled something and is jogging towards the center of the arena. For having such short legs, he's pretty fast.”

Samson frowned as yet another zombie bit his arm. It didn't hurt since the arm was made of ectoplasm, but the tingling he felt from it was really annoying. A thin set of brass knuckles moved from his wrist through his hand and came out around his knuckles. Punching the zombie in the head, he cracked its skull with a single blow.

He was outside the largest building in the arena, and it seemed to be the source of the zombies. Now where was Peccary? The zombies weren't very tough, so they wouldn't stop pig boy.

His question was answered as two long arms came from behind, wrapping around his belly and squeezing hard.

Inside his shell, his fleshy body was painfully squeezed between two steel sheets and the arms which felt like a hydraulic press. His ectoplasm was tough, but not tough enough to handle that kind of pressure. Breathing was becoming difficult, and it felt like he was about to break.

Pushing more squishy ectoplasm around himself in an attempt to cushion his flesh body, Samson got to work on breaking out.

“This isn't good. Peccary has Samson on the ropes with his arms trapped. If that wasn't a manifested shell, Samson would have a broken back right now,” Tink said.

As she watched through the monitor, Samson's arms faded into mist, reforming free of the hold. Then his entire body seemed to shift unnaturally, twisting around without actually moving so he was facing Peccary.

“Yes!” Mary shouted. “With his manifested shell, Samson can shift it around like clay. It took him a few months to learn how in BMA, but now he's a pain in the a- butt to fight.”

“B! Language! Remember we're on the air, and there are innocent ears listening in. Ouch! Samson has gone on the offensive and kneed Peccary in the old pig skin.”

“TINK!”

Peccary whimpered as the knee ground into his crotch. The death grip loosened, letting Samson breathe again. With his hands free, Samson followed up by slamming his palms onto the boy's ears with all his strength. It was a bit too much for Peccary who let go and vomited all over himself and Samson.

Grimacing, Samson stepped back letting his soiled manifested flesh and clothes vanish, revealing the white ectoplasm underneath. Distracted, he never saw the fist coming for his head.

His face deformed around the fist, and then splattered, flinging bits of ectoplasm all around. Peccary stared in horror as his hand went through Samson's head and came out the other side.

Despite losing his head, Samson didn't let that slow him down. He blindly pummeled the sophomore, knocking the boy back and to the ground. He swung a few more times only hitting air, before he realized it would really help if he had eyes again.

Remaking his ectoplasmic head, he saw his opponent was down and dazed. Reaching into his thigh, he pulled out the handcuffs which were rated for bricks, and quickly cuffed the boy. It wouldn't stop Peccary from defending himself from zombies which were starting to come out of the buildings en masse, but it would make a rematch unlikely.

“Good fight,” he said, smiling at his opponent. “You almost had me for a second there. If you want a friendly match later, let me know.”

Peccary nodded, but didn't say anything.

Turning to face the zombies, Samson pulled the club out from his crotch, grinning a little at the image he was presenting, and waded into the melee. He still had a Combat Final to win.

Tink turned bright red as Samson revealed his weapon. “Oh my god!” she squeaked.

“Well, I didn't know Samson had such a big club,” Mary said, trying not to laugh.

“EWWW! Not you too!” the fairy shouted. “I need eye bleach!”

Morpheus
Crystal Hall, Monday late morning, Dec 10th, 2007

Gwen Wylann sat at a table with some of her friends, absently poking at her lunch without actually eating. A green pixie sat on top of her head, looking as depressed as she felt.

“Too bad about your final,” her roommate Dana said sympathetically. “It sucks that you had to be one of the first people to do it…”

“At least if you’d gone later,” Fixx added, “you would have seen what everyone else did…”

“Indeed,” Porcelain agreed. “It is unfortunate that you did not have the opportunity to learn from others…and that as a result, your performance may harm your reputation.”

Gwen winced at that while her boyfriend Collin quickly interjected, “It’s not her fault…”

“Yeah,” Gwen said with a long sigh. “I know it must have been pretty funny… I mean, they put me up against a blind kid…and I lost.”

Porcelain nodded her head, though the sound of her shell cracking at that movement made Gwen wince just slightly. It sounded like it should be painful, though Porcelain had assured them that it wasn’t in the slightest.

“If I hit just about anyone else with even half of what I threw at Jericho, they would have been done for,” Gwen said a bit defensively. “But of course, illusions don’t work on someone who can’t see them. And when I hit him with my glamour… he just shrugged it off.”

“Well, I believe his power is psychic in nature,” Collin mused thoughtfully. “So, I guess it would make sense if he had better than normal defenses against people messing with his mind…”

Dana snorted. “I just hope they don’t put me up against someone who’s immune to my powers…” She winked at Gwen and smirked. “That was pretty embarrassing.”

Gwen flipped her roommate off. “It sucked. I’m just lucky I got a C for my grade.” She shook her head, then lowered her voice to repeat the comments she’d been given. “You can’t afford to underestimate your opponent… You should have changed tactics sooner…” Then she paused to shake her head. “At least I did good against the zombies…”

“And this is why we need an official training team,” Collin stated, bringing up the topic that they’d already discussed before. “When you have a team, there’s always someone to watch your back or cover for your weak spots…”

“I too would be interested in this training team,” Porcelain said.

Everyone at the table stopped and stared at her in surprise. “I didn’t think you were the training team type,” Collin said diplomatically. In fact, everyone in school knew that Porcelain was not only harmless but was practically helpless due to the way her permanently manifested shell made it difficult for her to move.

Porcelain was silent for several seconds, then sounded almost amused when she finally said, “I believe that I might surprise you.”

“Definitely,” Fixx muttered with a faint smirk.

“An official training team might not be a bad idea,” Gwen admitted, looking around at her friends. “But I’m not sure they’d even let us take team tactics yet.” She shook her head, disturbing the pixie that was sitting there so that it flew up into the air and joined several more that had been circling overhead. “Anyway, we can talk about that again later when we have more time.”

Gwen didn’t want to be late for class, so she got up and emptied her still mostly full plate into the garbage, then nodded to her friends as she left the cafeteria. She stepped outside and paused just long enough to send her pixies out as scouts, using them to watch for any potential ambushes. Once Gwen was satisfied, she continued on her way.

When Gwen was about halfway across the quad, she suddenly spotted something that made her come to a complete stop. Two girls stood off to the side, watching her with intent expressions and mischievous grins. The matching looks on their faces was enough to send a cold chill down Gwen’s spine. After all, Beltane and Jade wouldn’t have those expressions unless someone was about to receive their worst attentions.

“Damn,” Gwen gulped, knowing without a doubt that she was their target.

Shortly after Gwen had come to Whateley and moved into Poe, Beltane and Jade had both pranked her. They’d each done it separately, but Gwen had retaliated by tricking them into going after each other. That had resulted in weeks of the two girls pranking each other, all while Gwen watched on in silent triumph. However, once they’d learned of her own bit of mischief, they’d teamed up and promised a retaliation.

“And here it is,” Gwen muttered, quickly looking around to see if she could spot what they had planned.

A moment later, Gwen spotted the threat floating overhead. It was a parade float that looked like Hello Kitty, which had been above her pixie scouts but was quickly descending. The giant Hello Kitty float was holding an enormous pie, which it was lifting to throw. Gwen didn’t question the oddness of this as she was already in motion, turning invisible and trying to slip away while an illusion copy of herself remained behind as a decoy.

The giant pie was about fifteen feet across, and when it flew down from the air above, it smashed right into Gwen’s illusion. Gwen herself made it far enough away to avoid the direct impact, but not the massive splatter that exploded outward in a wave of white creamy filling. It slammed into her back and threw her face first into the ground, distracting her and making her drop her invisibility.

“WHAT THE HELL?” someone demanded off to the side.

Another student who’d been caught in the blast, exclaimed, “I’VE BEEN SLIMED!”

Gwen grimaced and got to her knees, only to find that she was covered in a thick white slime… No, slime was slippery and this was sticky and gooey… Then it dawned on her. Marshmallow fluff. She’d just been hit with a giant marshmallow fluff pie.

“Great,” Gwen grimaced as she stood up again and looked down at her clothes, which were completely coated in marshmallow goo. “This is going to be a pain to clean off…”

Then Gwen looked around, spotting over a dozen other students who’d been caught in the crossfire. One girl stood there, looking completely lost and confused, as though she had no idea of what was happening. A couple others were angry and loudly demanding to know who’d done this. And then, there was Trixie, who was throwing handfuls of marshmallow at some other girl while giggling in delight. If Gwen hadn’t known who was really responsible for this mess, she might have blamed Trixie.

“YOU DID THIS,” one boy yelled, pointing at Trixie.

“No way,” Trixie responded, suddenly shifting from giddy to angry. “Someone pranked me, and when I find out who…they’re going to PAY.” She began laughing maniacally. “Revenge is a dish best served stinky…”

“I bet it was Mischief,” someone else said. “Or Monkeywrench…”

“Jericho,” another boy pointed out. “Or maybe Razorback…”

Gwen just turned to look at Beltane and Jade, both of whom were laughing. The girls both bowed to Gwen then turned and hurried off before anyone else noticed them and could properly assign blame.

This wasn’t over. Those two might have hit Gwen hard, but she knew that neither of those girls would be satisfied with just this. Both girls were notorious pranksters and this wasn’t nearly at the level that either of them was capable of. No, Gwen had no doubt that this was only the first round of their retaliation.

Domoviye
Monday early afternoon, Dec 10th, 2007

“Oh no, poor Smile,” Tink said over the speakers.

“Ooohhhh...” Broken said. “Yeah, this is going to be really annoying for her.”

“Ugh, I'd rather have to fight Miasma, or Tar, or Achoo. Gunny and Sensei Ito are really, really mean to do this to the poor girl.”

“Maybe it's punishment for something,” B suggested.

“Punishment for what? Smile is the most boring fairy ever!”

“Please just kill me now,” Smile silently pleaded, looking up at the uncaring ceiling, wondering why god seemed to hate her.

“Oh my god! I can't believe we're in a combat final together!” Fairy Girl shouted, while jumping up and down excitedly. The girl was wearing a Tinkerbell-like dress with fake fairy wings that shimmered in the lights, probably thanks to an enchantment, and her blonde hair was tied up into a French braid with several pink ribbons holding it together. A mask, seemingly made of living leaves, covered her face, and a thin fairy godmother wand rounded out the outfit.

“Hi Jenny,” Smile said, forcing herself to smile. It wasn't that her opponent was bad, she was actually really upbeat and excitable, and wanted to play, and have fun and pretend to be a fairy all the time. And since Smile could turn into a fairy, well that just made the sickeningly sweet girl want to hang out whenever she could and talk about fairies and do fun fairy things together.

Smile found herself pulled into a hug despite standing out of arm's reach of the girl. She really wished that she was a little bigger so Fairy Girl couldn't just yank her around with her TK-2 power.

“We have to work together for this combat final, Smile! Fairies vs. Zombies, we'll be able to beat anyone.”

“If you two are done, it's time to explain your mission,” Gunny said, glaring at the pair of them.

Slipping out of the embrace, Smile thankfully walked over to the large man, staying a bit too far back, but managing to hide her discomfort of facing him behind a smile. Fairy Girl stood beside her, grinning excitedly. Wishing for a quick and merciful death, she listened to the old man's instructions.

The gate opened and Smile ran out in her ordinary clothes plus a mask, shifting to her fairy form as soon as her foot hit the arena floor. Suddenly she was a foot tall fairy wearing a sleek blue dress, her dragonfly wings beating rapidly to hold her up, holding a solid looking 'magic' wand. She also had a matching blue opera mask that was actually part of her face. It had taken a few months to learn how to change her fairy look, and it was still kind of hit or miss if she'd get what she really wanted. At least today it seemed she'd gotten it right.

Fairy Girl squealed behind her. “You look so cute!”

“Thanks. So any ideas? The prize is usually somewhere near the center of the arena.”

“Let's fly around, we'll be able to avoid the yucky zombies that way.” Fairy Girl closed her eyes and tapped her head with her wand to activate a spell. There was a flash of light and the glowing dragonfly wings on her back began to move, lifting her into the air. Beaming, the girl said, “Pretty cool, huh! Now I can fly just like you and Tink!”

“Great!” Smile said, trying to sound enthusiastic. It was a cool spell, but now it would be even harder to avoid the girl.

Taking to the air, they started surveying the arena. Smile was a much better flier than her companion, who while able to go in a mostly straight line had trouble staying level and at a consistent speed. Still, it was a lot faster than walking.

“Oh, look at the cute birds!” Fairy Girl shouted, pointing ahead of them.

A large flock of birds, that seemed to be made up of many different species from tiny songbirds to large ravens, was rising from the buildings and heading straight for them.

“I don't think they're friendly,” Smile said.

She got a good look at the faster ones. They were missing feathers, eyes, and legs, and their calls sounded more like groans. Grabbing Fairy Girl's arm, she took off, heading for the ground at top speed. They could not fight that many birds in the air.

“Ugh, this reeks!” Smile said, covering her nose as they moved through the sewer.

“At least you can fly, I have to walk through this,” Fairy Girl griped as she walked through the greasy looking black water, which had odd lumps floating in it. She had a glowing compass needle floating in front of her, giving off light and letting them keep track of where the center of the arena was, so they wouldn't get too lost. “Why hasn't anyone else gotten zombie birds?” she asked.

“It's the first day, and they haven't had any strong fliers yet. They are probably there to stop me from just flying wherever I want.”

Stepping around a rat that seemed to be happily rafting along on something neither girl wanted to get a close look at, Fairy Girl started to say something when a groan echoed in the tight confines of the sewer. Looking ahead in the dim light, several shambling figures came around the corner. They probably smelled terrible, but with the sewer stench the rotten smell was seriously overpowered.

“I'll numb their legs and you knock them down!” Smile shouted. Raising her wand she pushed out the energy that acted like Novocain, numbing anything it hit.

Fairy Girl nodded and concentrated using her TK to yank the stumbling zombies down into the muck. She could have knocked them down by herself, but if they braced themselves it could be difficult, especially for the bigger zombies. With their legs all wobbly, it was just a case of giving them a good hard pull or push.

With the group of zombies down, Smile flew over and started cracking skulls with her heavy wand. She cringed and shut her eyes with each swing, trying not to listen to the crack. “They're just ANTs, they're not real,” she muttered to herself.

A manhole cover lifted up into the air and settled gently on the pavement, allowing Smile to fly up and peek around, using her small size to help avoid getting seen. Zombies were roaming the street, heading towards a small group of terrified humans.

“Oh no!” Smile shouted. Without thinking she flew towards the people, zapping zombies as she flew while cracking her wand against their knees and legs like a baseball bat. She heard Fairy Girl shouting something, but was too focused on rescuing the scared civilians to care.

Suddenly a glowing swarm of ethereal fairies appeared, laughing and giggling as they flew around seemingly at random. The zombies who weren't attacking the ANTS turned to the bright noisy target and started chasing the magical constructs.

Smile didn't notice any of that, too intent on stopping the monsters before anyone got hurt. It took a minute, but soon enough the civilian ANTS were able to flee the disabled zombies who were crawling on broken and numbed legs. The rest of the zombies were far down the street following the giggling fake fairies.

“Smile!” Fairy Girl said a little sharply to get her attention. “Come on, the zombie lab is just up the street.”

Breathing hard, trying to put the memory of the terrified ANTS out of her mind, Smile nodded. “Right, we have to win this. Let's go.” Together the two girls headed off to win the combat final.

Gunny looked down at the two filth covered girls, letting them stew a little before telling them how they did. “That was good teamwork. You covered each other’s weaknesses and helped each other out without wasting time talking or arguing. Taking to the sewers was smart when you found the sky was too dangerous. And you saved some civilians. Smile, you were reckless charging in like that, but you at least used your head when you attacked, and didn't shout or make a speech. Fairy Girl, your illusion was well thought out and very effective.”

Smile and Fairy Girl grinned. They'd heard that praise from the Gunny was to be treasured.

“Fairy Girl, you get an A plus. Smile, A minus. Now get out of here, you both stink.”

They both thanked him and hurried out. He was right, they reeked, the sooner they had a shower the better.

“That was fun, and scary, but really fun,” Fairy Girl said.

“Yeah, it was,” Smile agreed.

“So, do you want to have supper with me tonight?

Smile was about to say no. But they'd worked really well together, and Fairy Girl hadn't been gushing about fairies the whole time, so she hadn't been annoying. “Sure, I'd like that.”

Together they headed for Dickinson.

Morpheus
Devisor labs, Monday evening, Dec 10th, 2007

Monkeywrench stood at his work bench, putting the final touches on a couple of his latest projects. At the moment, his attention was primarily focused on a devise that strongly resembled a piece of fruit.

“What are you doing?” a voice asked.

The furry boy turned and saw a petite and plain looking girl coming towards him. “Hey, Balderdash,” he greeted her, even as he pulled a towel over a different devise that was sitting off to the side. “What’s up?”

Balderdash looked a little self-conscious as she gestured back towards her own workspace. “Trixie is making something new…and she’s making me kind of nervous.”

“Manic giggling again?” Monkeywrench asked with a chuckle.

The petite girl nodded. “Yeah. It’s kind of creepy, and if I didn’t know better, I’d think she has Diedricks.”

Monkeywrench grinned at that. “Probably making a new model of stink bomb then…”

“Maybe,” Balderdash responded quietly. “But I don’t think so…” Then she gave Monkeywrench a look that was both curious and suspicious. “And what are YOU working on?”

“Not much,” the furry boy cheerfully answered. “That thing in the quad at lunch kind of inspired me to finish a couple projects…” His eyes darted to the devise that was hidden beneath the towel before he reached out to touch the apparent piece of fruit. “I just wanted to get this thing ready for my combat final…”

Balderdash stared at the devise for a moment before blurting out, “That’s not a banana…”

“Nope,” he responded with a broad grin. “I don’t want to get TOO predictable…” Then he held up the apparent pineapple and proudly announced, “This is my new pineapple grenade…”

The other devisor just groaned, facepalmed, and walked away without saying another word.

Domoviye
Hawthorne Cottage, Monday evening, Dec 10th, 2007

Tink scrubbed the Hawthorne toilet with a toothbrush, humming to herself as she did. This was one of the normal bathrooms in the cottage so the job was easy if a bit gross. Dipping the brush into the cleaning solution, she scrubbed at a particularly hard stain.

All of sudden there was a scream from outside.

Rushing out the door, detention forgotten Tink heard the scream a second time. It was coming from Raptor's room. She'd heard the girl scream like that twice before, the poor girl was laying an ostrich egg.

She rubbed her hands together. “Perfect, I have everything ready. This is going to be awesome!”

Giving the closed door one last pitying look, Tink flew back to her job. She could finally put her plan into action, and if everything went well she'd put a smile on the girl's face in the morning.

Domoviye
Hawthorne Cottage, Tuesday morning, Dec 11th, 2007

“Who wants omelets? We've got cheese, bacon, sausage, ham, vege, and mushroom omelets, and a special sauce that’s a secret family recipe,” Tink shouted from the Hawthorne kitchen.

Pans were sizzling as she and Roulette cooked. Tink mostly handled stirring and flipping the ingredients on the stove, using her PK field to hold the enormous spatula in one tiny hand, while Roulette added new ingredients as needed and plated the food. They were making a pretty effective team in her opinion.

As one omelet was finished, Roulette grabbed the ostrich size egg sitting on the counter, took out the cork pressed into a precisely made hole at the top of the egg, and poured out the well shaken egg yolk into the pan.

From the corner of her eye Tink saw Raptor come into the kitchen, joining the line of hungry students. The bird-like girl was walking rather bow-legged. Hiding a smile, she kept working on a cheese omelet for Frostbite.

Raptor's eyes went wide as she saw the mocha coloured giant egg being poured for the next omelet. “Where did you get that?”

Tink grinned. “I 'found' it in the tunnel close to Doyle. Had it tested and everything and it's all good to use for cooking. Finders keepers, losers go hungry!”

The bird girl suddenly looked rather green. Before she could say anything, there was a shout from the other side of the kitchen where the vampiric Sanguine was spitting out a steaming red liquid that had just come out of the microwave.

“Who replaced my blood with tomato juice?!” the pale teenager shouted, coughing and hacking as she spoke.

Everyone looked at the red sauce that Tink was stirring, and some of the people eating from plates with the thick sauce looked ill.

“That wasn't me! Mouser always told me not to make vampires angry,” Tink exclaimed.

“What about my egg?” Raptor demanded.

Roulette smiled and unscrewed the top of the 'egg'. “Tink had it made in the workshop last month. It scrambles the eggs inside and you can pour it out through the hole.”

“Fooled ya!” Tink shouted.

Morpheus
Tuesday morning, Dec 11th, 2007

The beautiful, talented, and fabulous Imp sat at the desk in her classroom, working on the dreadful but necessary task of paperwork. Her students were focused on their current art projects, or were at least being quiet enough that she could pretend that they were. She’d get up and walk around the room to see if anyone needed help in a bit, but for now, she focused on her own unwanted project.

“Hey,” a voice suddenly whispered into her ear.

Imp looked over and saw what appeared to be a tiny version of herself, hovering right over her shoulder. The tiny Imp was dressed all in red, had red horns instead of black, and she had a pair of devil’s wings. In addition, a trident was clutched in her hand.

The devilishly cute figure announced, “I know that you’re thinking about pulling some pranks…”

“A few,” Imp admitted with amusement.

“YES,” the figure exclaimed. “Do them. Do ALL the pranks…”

Before Imp could respond, another voice came from her other shoulder. “No… You’re a teacher now. You have to be responsible…”

Imp looked over to that shoulder and saw that there was another figure there, one that also looked like a tiny version of herself. However, this little Imp was dressed all in white, and instead of devil wings, she had a pair of fluffy white wings. A glitter halo hung over her head, reminding her oh so much of her costume at the school Halloween party.

“You need to be a good role model for all the students,” the little angel insisted.

“Forget that,” the devil Imp protested. “Do the pranks… It will be FUN!”

The teacher looked back and forth between the little devil and the little angel, holding back a smile. “I don’t know… I think you both need to do a better job of convincing me. Do either of you have a presentation ready?”

That seemed to throw off both the shoulder angel and the shoulder devil, at least for a few seconds. “Forget about that stuff,” the devil urged. “Pranks are fun. You know you wanna…”

“Well,” Imp admitted, “there is one prank that I’ve been seriously considering…but it might be just a little too much.”

“It will be a lot of fun,” the devil insisted. “You know you want to…”

The angel gasped in mock horror, “But think of the children…”

“I am,” the devil Imp responded. “You’ll make them all laugh…”

“DO IT!” the devil and angel both told her at the same time.

Imp looked at the angel on her shoulder and asked, “Weren’t you just trying to talk me out of it?”

The angel heisted for a moment before responding, “No no, she’s got a point. Everyone will laugh, and that’s a good thing…”

“You’ll have fun,” the devil insisted.

“You’ll make everyone laugh,” the angel added.

Then as one, they exclaimed, “DO EEET!”

“All right, I’ll do it,” Imp announced as she jumped to her feet and started towards her classroom door. “I’ll find Melissa and paint her plaid…”

All the students stared at the Imp as she left the classroom, their expressions a mixture of surprise, confusion, and amusement. Laugher suddenly broke out from several sources and spread around the room.

Behind the teacher’s desk, Mischief suddenly appeared as she dropped her invisibility, holding an Imp puppet in each hand. With a nervous gulp and a visible wince, she muttered, “Ooops.”

Domoviye
Combat Finals Announcer, Tuesday morning, Dec 11th, 2007

“And there's a vicious right, and a left! Oh he got sloppy and got rocked by a nasty backhand, that'll teach him to get cocky! The blows are coming fast and furious now. Both contenders are dazed and confused, but still standing and hitting with everything they've got!” Tink shouted.

“Tink, give it up. We're watching a literal slapfest. I've seen toddlers fight better than these two,” B said.

“I know! But I have to try to make it interesting for our audience.”

“Nothing is going to make this interesting, at least not until the zombies arrive and eat them.”

Tink sighed. “Yeah you're right. Want to go get a snack before the next combat final starts?”

“Sure. But aren't you forgetting something?”

“... No.”

It was B's turn to sigh. “The closet.”

“Oh right. I should let those guys out. Let them deal with this snooze fest.”

“Yeah. Just let me go out first, they weren't too happy when you shoved them in there.”

Morpheus
Tuesday afternoon, Dec 11th, 2007

“RIBBON AND UNSTOPPABLE, PLEASE REPORT TO THE ARENA.”

Alyss Morgan glanced up to the loudspeaker where the announcement had come from. She let out a sigh and slowly stood up from her seat. “I guess it’s my turn.”

Of the friends who were currently present, Melissa was the only one who’d already gone through her combat final. Amy and Monkeywrench were still waiting on their turns.

“Good luck,” Amy told her.

“Yeah,” Melissa agreed, cheerfully giving Alyss two thumbs up. “And have fun…”

Monkeywrench burst out laughing while gesturing to Melissa. “Just don’t try getting the zombies to dance…”

“Hey,” Melissa protested defensively. “It was funny…”

“No,” Amy corrected with a look of amusement. “It would have been funny if they’d actually danced. This was more…embarrassing.”

Melissa pouted at that. “Well, I thought they’d be programmed to dance… I saw this really old music video where the zombies were all dancing, and it looked really fun…”

Alyss chuckled at that. “Oh yeah, I remember that one…”

“And while you were distracted with the zombie dance lessons,” Amy pointed out, “Boojum was getting that zombie cure… You’re lucky he got lost, or you wouldn’t have had any chance to catch up.”

“As much as I’d love to join in on the teasing,” Alyss said, “I’ve got to get going…” Then she paused and turned to Monkeywrench. “Do you happen to have a smoke bomb I can borrow?”

“Not on me,” Monkeywrench responded with an apologetic shrug. “I used my last one to get away from some would-be bullies.”

Alyss grinned at that and pointed out, “I don’t know if they count as bullies when you pranked them first.”

“But it was funny,” both Monkeywrench and Melissa exclaimed at the same time.

“They didn’t need to overreact like that,” Monkeywrench grumbled, though he was grinning as he did so.

“Here,” Melissa said, handing Alyss one of her smoke bombs. “You can have one of mine. They’re great for that whole ninja vanishing trick…”

“Thanks,” Alyss told her. “This is just what I needed…”

Amy frowned before pointing out, “You’re only supposed to use your own holdouts.”

“It’ll be fine,” Alyss assured her. “This isn’t for the main match.” Then she gave Melissa another nod of appreciation before turning and hurrying towards the arena and her upcoming final.

Alyss stood in front of the active part of the arena, fully aware of the door closing behind her. She’d already been given her briefing and was merely waiting for the match to officially begin. It was not a long wait as the announcement to begin came mere seconds later.

She slowly looked around, getting a better idea of her settings. She seemed to be in the middle of a city, or at least, what was left of one. All the buildings in sight looked to be crumbling ruins, as though this place had been through a massive bombing many years ago. There were a few cars in sight, but they were old and rusted, looking like they hadn’t moved in two decades.

Her starting position for the match, where she’d just arrived into the arena, looked like it had once been a small neighborhood park. There was a rusted swing set, a rusty slide, and some generic climbing equipment. For a moment, she wondered if they’d started her off there because she looked like a little girl, but then decided that it didn’t really matter.

Alyss knew exactly what she looked like, a ten-year-old girl with long silvery-white hair, who was dressed in a school uniform and the generic domino mask she’d been provided. She had no doubt that for anyone watching, she’d look cute, helpless, and definitely the underdog, especially when they compared her appearance to that of her opponent.

“Time to earn some extra credit,” Alyss announced as she stepped forward and made a dramatic pose, then threw the smoke bomb at her feet.

In an instant, Alyss’ entire body was engulfed in a thick cloud of smoke, though she knew that it would only last for a couple seconds. However, with her power, a couple seconds was all she needed to tear off her school uniform and manifest a new outfit in its place. She made sure to be in the same dramatic pose when the smoke cleared up and revealed her.

Alyss now wore a long dress, black with white trim, in her usual gothic Lolita style, though with a little extra magical girl flair added in. In addition, she’d replaced her generic domino mask with a purple masquerade style mask that covered the top half of her face.

Some of the ‘older’ students had told Alyss that they gave out extra credit in the finals for dramatic costume changes, and since she couldn’t count on there being a convenient phone booth nearby, she’d gone with the smoke bomb instead. She hoped that this costume change was good enough to impress the people giving the grades, but even if it wasn’t, she had no doubt that it would impress the girls in Wondercute.

After waiting a couple more seconds, just long enough for the smoke to completely clear, Alyss burst into action. She raced down the street as fast as she could until she saw the first group of zombies. But instead of fighting them, she leapt onto the nearest roof top and simply went past them so she could get to her goal before her opponent.

Alyss saw other zombies wandering around below on the streets, most of them aimlessly though a few seemed just a little smarter…just a little more aware of their surroundings. Those ones looked up at her as she passed by and even began to follow from a distance. But to her surprise, she also saw people. She saw several human survivors, dressed in rags and sneaking from one building to another when the zombies weren’t looking.

“Crap,” she muttered to herself. “That could be a problem.”

She paused on top of one roof to look around more carefully. They hadn’t given her any kind of map of the arena or even told her where to go, at least not in any detail. All she’d been told was that she had to find the ‘cure’, whatever that was, and deliver it to the drop-off location, all while dealing with zombies, her opponent, and the arena itself.

“That cure should be easy to find,” Alyss thought aloud. “It’s not like I’m looking for a needle in a haystack.”

Sure, there were a lot of buildings in the area, or the remains of them, but Alyss doubted the cure would be in one of them. Or at least, she doubted that it would be in one that wasn’t fairly noticeable. After all, the combat finals were supposed to be somewhat short, not all day events. They wouldn’t have the time to spend hours searching through the wreckage, which meant that the cure would be somewhere easy to find.

“And probably near the middle,” she continued thinking. From what she’d heard from other students, that was fairly standard. “Of course, that doesn’t necessarily mean anything since those jacka…jokers keep changing things between every match.”

Alyss was about to continue on her way when she suddenly heard a loud smashing sound in the distance. She perked up, straining to hear more. More crunching and smashing followed. After a few seconds of consideration, she began running towards the source.

It didn’t take long for Alyss to find the source of the noise. Her opponent, Unstoppable, stood in the middle of the street, fighting off a group of zombies. Unstoppable was a huge kid, far larger than anyone his age had any right to be. His upper body was large and muscular, though his lower body was much smaller and completely out of proportion. In fact, he looked like one of those cheap thugs in the old cartoons, and what was worse, he acted like one too.

Unstoppable charged forward, swinging his large arms and knocking multiple zombies aside with each swing. One of them hit the wall of a building with enough force that the wall shattered and toppled over.

“Not what I was looking for,” Alyss mused.

Alyss didn’t see any sign of the cure, so she was about to turn and leave. However, before she could do so, Unstoppable saw her.

“You,” Unstoppable called out. “Creepy little doll girl…”

“No,” Alyss responded. “That would be Porcelain. I’m the creepy little goth girl.”

Unstoppable ran forward and then leapt up at Alyss, his arm pulled back to punch as soon as he was close enough. Alyss could have easily leapt out of the way, but she hated the idea of running away from a fight, especially with a punk like this. Ignoring him and continuing on her way was one thing, but to actually run away like a dog with its tail between its leg…? She’d rather give up her favorite beer.

As soon as Unstoppable reached Alyss, she stepped to the side to avoid his punch, grabbing his arm at the same time. With just a little bit of her strength, she yanked on the arm, pulling Unstoppable completely off course and using his own momentum to fling him back to the ground where he hit with a nasty impact.

Alyss leapt off the roof and came down right on top of her opponent, driving her feet into him as hard as she could and smashing him into the ground even harder. Then, before Unstoppable could retaliate, she jumped back and readied herself for a fight.

“This doesn’t have to go like this,” Alyss said, more because she felt the need to give Unstoppable the chance to back out. “Walk away, kid.”

Normally, Alyss would avoid any kind of serious fight with a kid like Unstoppable, no matter how obnoxious he was. However, he was a high-level exemplar, an exemplar 5 compared to her exemplar 6, so he was tough enough to take a little tough love. She grinned in anticipation, looking forward to the chance to cut loose a little.

“I’m gonna hurt you, girlie,” Unstoppable exclaimed as he got back to his feet. “Nobody messes with Unstoppable…”

“You know,” Alyss commented in a casual tone. “I seem to remember that people call you Stoppable…”

Unstoppable charged at Alyss again, but this time she wasn’t quite fast enough to pull the same maneuver that she had before. The large fist hit and sent her flying into the side of a building, hard enough to leave a few cracks from the impact.

“Not bad,” Alyss responded as she pulled herself off. She’d actually felt that hit, enough so that it might even leave a bruise. “But not good enough.”

Alyss moved closer to Unstoppable, paying closer attention to his movements. She was stronger than him, but he was larger and had longer reach. Those were advantages that she couldn’t ignore.

“Fortunately,” she mused to herself, “I know how to give myself a bit more reach…”

A moment later, she removed the thick black metal rings that she wore on each wrist like bracelets. These rings were made of ebidium, an extremely hard, dense, and heavy metal which also made them effective weapons for someone who was strong enough to use them. Someone like her.

Lengths of ribbon formed and wrapped around the rings, so that when she dropped the rings, each dangled from several feet of ribbon. Alyss began swinging them around, one weighted ribbon in each hand.

Unstoppable swung a large fist at Alyss, but she avoided the hit and then stepped in, slamming him in the side with each of her spinning weights. She moved back in time to avoid another punch while returning the favor with several more strikes. Over the next half minute, Alyss hit her opponent another fifteen times while continuing to avoid all of his attacks.

“Stop moving around,” Unstoppable demanded.

Instead of answering, Alyss flung one of her rings right at Unstoppables face, smashing him right in the nose with a sickening crunch and a burst of blood. He staggered back, leaving himself completely open for a much more serious attack.

Alyss grinned as she saw the opening, knowing exactly what she was going to do with it. There was a building about twenty yards behind Unstoppable, and one good hit would throw him right into it. With as crumbly as it looked, she guessed that the wall would likely collapse right on top of him, which would then give her the opportunity to finish the mission. But just as Alyss was about to rush in and deliver the hit, she saw something from one of the windows in the building. A pair of faces were peeking out the window. Human faces.

“Damn,” Alyss exclaimed in realization.

There were people in that building. Survivors. And if she threw Unstoppable into it like she’d planned, and it collapsed on top of him…then they would undoubtedly be caught in that. Sure, they were robots and not really people at all, but the very idea of killing innocent people as collateral damage made her sick to her stomach.

“No,” Alyss gasped, memories flashing through her mind. She’d seen the damage that kind of thing left behind…all the pain and grief that their families dealt with. “No way in Hell…”

Alyss’ hesitation gave Unstoppable a chance to recover, and a couple seconds later, he came charging at her again. He snarled in rage as he swung his fist, nearly catching her while she was distracted. However, she recovered in time to react, dropping her remaining ring and grabbing hold of Unstoppables fist. With a twist and pull that she’d learned in BMA, she used his own momentum against him, pulling him over her shoulder and slamming him right into the ground. Then, for good measure, she gave him a swift kick in the side with the strength of a high-level exemplar. He skidded down the street with a loud grunt.

“I’m gonna crush you, you little pipsqueak,” Unstoppable snarled with blood all over his face.

Alyss just glared at Unstoppable, more than a little tempted to lose her temper and really go off on him. If anyone needed a good ass kicking, it was this punk. Maybe it would drive some common sense into him. But at the same time, she almost felt sorry for the kid. Almost.

“I don’t want to waste anymore time on you,” Alyss stated almost dismissively. “I’ve got a final to finish.”

That seemed to piss Unstoppable off even more, because he howled in rage and was about to charge at her. However, he hadn’t noticed the long ribbon that she’d formed and had sent slithering along the ground like a snake. As soon as it reached him, it wrapped around his legs and pulled tight. Alyss yanked on the end that she was still holding, pulling Unstoppable’s feet right out from underneath so that he landed flat on the ground.

“Take a load off,” she said with a smirk.

If Alyss had been fighting almost anyone else, she would have simply wrapped them up like a mummy and left them there, unable to move. Unfortunately, Unstoppable was too strong for that to work. Her ribbons weren’t strong enough to hold someone that strong, at least not for very long. That meant she had to be a little more creative than usual.

Alyss pulled on the ribbon as she began spinning around, using all of her strength to pull Unstoppable into the air. It was hard without the right leverage, but she was strong enough to compensate. In seconds, she was spinning around while dragging the large boy along. It reminded her of times past, back when she used to hold her daughters hands and spin them around so that their bodies were pulled up off the ground. She smiled as she remembered the looks on their faces and the laughter. Unstoppable wasn’t laughing. And once she had him going fast enough, she used a little extra strength to not only release the ribbon and the oversized weight on the end, but to actually fling him.

“So long,” Alyss said as she watched Unstoppable flying through the air, over a building and continuing until he hit the far wall of the arena and came to an abrupt stop. “That’s gotta hurt.”

Since Alyss didn’t want to waste any more time, she quickly picked up both of her discarded ebidium bracelets and put them back on her wrists. She looked around, saw at least a dozen zombies approaching, apparently having been drawn in by the noise of her fight with Unstoppable. Then she made a show of brushing the dust off her dress and cracking her knuckles before she went to work.

Alyss made quick work of the zombies and continued on her way. Just a short distance away from where she’d fought Unstoppable, almost right around the corner, she discovered her goal. There was a metal platform in the middle of the street with a metallic cube on the top of it. Green LED lights lit up each of the cube’s sides.

“That’s not suspicious,” she mused as she approached.

Once Alyss reached the platform, a holographic image suddenly flickered to life in front of her. It looked like a woman in a lab coat. “Help me, brave stranger, you are our only hope.”

“I think I’ve seen this one before,” Alyss said.

The holographic woman continued to speak. “This data cube contains the detailed schematics of the zombie infection and how to cure it. Unfortunately, I have been infected and am unable to deliver it to its destination…a satellite uplink that will give the information to those who can use it. Please, brave stranger, finish my mission and deliver the data cube.” She pointed down the street, indicating which direction Alyss needed to go. “Humanity is relying on you.” And with that, the hologram blinked out.

Alyss picked up the cube and then began heading in the direction that the holographic woman had indicated. More zombies began to emerge ahead of her, making it increasingly difficult to avoid them. She was about to leap back onto a rooftop so that she could make more progress that way when she heard loud crashing and yelling in the distance, from the same direction that she’d thrown Unstoppable.

“Sounds like he’s making his way back,” she mused.

In spite of the fact that she only had a limited amount of time, Alyss took her time as she continued walking. She wasn’t concerned about either her opponent or the zombies since they were merely annoyances, not actual threats.

Then Alyss finally reached her destination, which she recognized immediately. It was a metal platform covered with green LEDs, looking very much like the platform where she’d previously found the cube. However, this one had a 6-foot-wide satellite dish set up beside it, and there was a noticeable absence of a cube.

“And there’s the complication,” she muttered, noticing the giant ten-foot-tall zombie that stood between her and her goal.

Unstoppable chose that moment to come charging back in, running down the street straight at Alyss with three zombies dangling from him as they desperately tried to hold on. Those unwanted passengers fell away as the massive boy let out a roar of rage and charged Alyss, throwing a punch as hard as he could.

Alyss grinned in anticipation, and before Unstoppable’s fist could land, she stepped aside and grabbed his arm. A moment later, the large boy went flying straight into the giant zombie, taking it out and clearing her path to the satellite pedestal.

“Thanks for lending a hand,” Alyss called out as she casually walked to the pedestal and set the data cube into the available slot. “Looks like I win.”

Gunny Bardue and Sensei Ito sat in the arena control room, staring at several monitors which displayed images of the combat final that was just finishing up. The central monitor was focused on a white-haired girl who had just placed the data cube into its receptacle, which officially ended the current match.

“So,” Gunny Bardue asked the elderly Japanese man sitting beside him, “did you see what you were looking for?”

“Indeed, I have,” Sensei Ito responded with a faint smile. He looked back at the image of Ribbon as she was beginning to leave the arena floor. “I wanted this specific matchup…this unofficial crash…for a reason.”

Bardue nodded and reminded him, “We talked about that before, but you never fully explained exactly what you wanted to see.”

“Miss Morgan,” Ito explained, “always holds back against opponents, no matter who she is matched against. She fears hurting her fellow students. And while this restraint would normally be commendable, I needed to see if she is capable of releasing that restraint when necessary.”

“And she still showed restraint when she needed to,” Bardue mused. “As soon as she spotted those civilian ANTs, she changed gears immediately.”

“Mister Hanson has a different issue entirely,” Ito continued. “He is…”

“Arrogant,” Bardue stated. “Reckless. Stupid.”

Ito smiled faintly at that. “I was going to say overconfident.”

“You’re more generous than I am,” Bardue told him.

“This specific match,” Ito explained, “gives Ribbon an opponent that she does not need to hold back against…and will hopefully teach Unstoppable a valuable lesson in underestimating his opponents.”

Bardue snorted at that. “That seems unlikely, but we can only hope.” And with that, he stood and said, “Now, let’s go debrief them.”

Morpheus
Tuesday afternoon, Dec 11th, 2007

“Did you see the look on his face when Alyss threw him?” Melissa Chambers exclaimed, pointing to the arena where the last combat finals match had just finished up. “It was AWESOME!”

“It was entertaining,” Darqueheart agreed with a chuckle of her own. “But I wonder who they have next.”

Chris Matthews nodded agreement, then paused to look around the seating area where countless other students were gathered to also watch the combat finals. This was a good bit of fun after a long day of classes…and dodging pranks, and it was obvious that he and his friends weren’t the only ones to think that.

After looking back at Darqueheart and Melissa, Chris asked, “Do you know if the others are going to show up?”

“Who knows,” Melissa answered with a shrug. “Actually, I think Monkeywrench is working on a prank…” She giggled at that, actually bouncing in her seat as she did so. “I should probably go watch, because that will be great…”

Darqueheart gave her a wry look. “Something relating to bananas?”

Melissa responded with a look of mock surprise. “How did you know?”

“A lucky guess,” Darqueheart answered with a faint smile. Then she looked back to the arena and added, “It looks like they’re starting the next one…”

Chris looked to the arena and by one of the entrances, he saw a boy who was wearing a gas mask. On the other side of the arena, near the other entrance, was the other competitor, a girl with shoulder-length brown hair, and red and white polka-dot mask that covered the top half of her face.

“I recognize Miasma,” Chris said, looking at the boy in the gas mask, thankful that he wasn’t the one who had to go against the notorious Underdog. “But who is she?”

“MINA!” Melissa exclaimed, practically bouncing in her seat as she pointed to the girl. “That’s Mina…”

“My roommate,” Darqueheart added in a casual tone, though the way she leaned forward and stared at the girl showed her interest. A small smirk formed on her lips as she mused, “This should be interesting…”

The match started and both students hurried towards the middle of the arena. Well, Mina ran while Miasma went at a much slower, almost casual pace.

Everything was decorated to look like a post-apocalyptic city, with burnt out and rusted cars parked in the middle of the streets. Zombies staggered around aimlessly until Mina or Miasma got too close, then they came at the students.

When zombies came after Mina, she turned and ran away from them, easily outpacing her slow and staggering pursuers. However, even though she was faster, she was still far outnumbered and the zombies kept closing in and surrounding her on each side. Her escapes from them became narrower and narrower.

Miasma stopped and stared at a small group of zombies that came towards him, but instead of running, he simply pulled out a lighter and then bent over. A burst of flame exploded from his rear end, engulfing three of the undead. All three of the zombies staggered back as flames continued to cover their bodies. At this point, Miasma finally ran away from them.

“That was gross,” Chris said with a scrunched up nose.

“Yeah,” Darqueheart agreed with her own look of disgust. “Definitely.”

Melissa just giggled before holding out her hand to Chris and exclaiming, “Pull my finger…”

He just rolled his eyes in response. “I never thought I’d hear that as a battle cry.”

Chris turned his attention back to the match on the arena floor, only to realize that Mina had found the zombie cure and he’d missed it. She was running back to the drop-off spot which could win her the match. Of course, she still had to get past the zombies…and Miasma. If he intercepted her and got the ‘cure’, he could be the one to drop it off and win the match instead.

“It looks like Miasma has almost caught up to her,” Chris pointed out unnecessarily since the others could see that just as well as he could. “And we haven’t seen her use any powers yet…”

“Nope,” Melissa agreed with a grin.

Just then, Mina turned a corner and found her path blocked by another group of zombies. She looked back and forth between them, clearly trying to decide if she could run past, though they began staggering towards her, closing the distance and making it even more difficult to get past.

Mina reached into her pocket and pulled out what looked like a flare gun and fired it right into the middle of the zombies. A flare shot out and exploded on impact, into a dazzling bright light that was hard for Chris to look at, even from where he was sitting. The zombies seemed stunned and confused, which Mina took advantage of to run past them.

“Is she a gadgeteer?” Chris asked the girls.

“Nope,” Melissa responded with a giggle. “I think she got that from Trixie.”

“From Trixie?” Chris asked with a frown. “Not a stink bomb?”

“Trixie makes the best stink bombs,” Melissa agreed. “But that’s not all she does…”

“So, what is her power then?” Chris asked, staring at Mina. “I haven’t seen her do anything…”

Darqueheart shook her head. “Mina’s powers are pretty much useless against zombies…”

“Or just about anyone else,” Melissa quickly added with another giggle.

Down in the arena, Miasma finally caught up with Mina and the two of them were facing each other in the middle of the street. They seemed to be talking, though the audience couldn’t hear what they were saying. From the way that Mina backed up and held the cure behind her back, it seemed that she wasn’t about to just hand it over to her opponent.

Miasma took several steps forward but Mina backed away. He hesitated for a moment, then pulled out some kind of grenade. Chris had heard about Miasma’s grenades, about how they stored a concentrated dose of his…miasma. The very thought of what this meant was enough to make Chris instinctively gag.

“Here it comes,” Melissa exclaimed, bouncing in her seat again.

Mina turned to run but she wasn’t fast enough. Miasma threw the grenade and it landed only a few feet away from Mina before it exploded. A thick brown cloud formed around Mina and the area around her, completely obscuring her from view.

“Oh God,” Chris gasped in disgust, feeling really bad for the poor girl. “That has to be the grossest way to fight that I’ve ever heard of…”

“Yeah,” Melissa agreed with a visible shudder. “Too bad he didn’t go up against Trixie, because it would have been fun to watch her throwing stink bombs at him…”

“But not very effective,” Darqueheart pointed out. “He has a gas mask.”

Melissa deflated at that. “Oh yeah…”

Chris continued to stare down at the brown cloud in the arena, watching as it quickly dissipated and faded away. He expected to see Mina on the ground, either on her knees and puking up her guts, or curled up in a ball while trying hard not to breathe. But instead, she remained standing where she had been, acting as though she was completely unaffected by Miasma’s attack.

Miasma also remained where he was, but from his body language, he seemed to be stunned by Mina’s reaction…or complete lack of one. Then she made a show of sticking her tongue out at him before shooting another flare at the ground between them. It flashed bright, far brighter than any normal flare, and during that moment of distraction Mina turned and ran away.

“What the…?” Chris started in surprise and confusion. “What just happened?”

“THAT was Mina’s power,” Darqueheart answered with an amused smirk. “She’s a PK…like you…except she’s only a PK 1. Her powers are really weak, only strong enough to block mosquito bites and bee stings, but not much else…”

Melissa nodded her agreement before enthusiastically adding, “Yeah, but her field is REALLY good at filtering out things like germs and poisons…”

Darqueheart sounded almost proud of her roommate as she explained, “And THAT is why her codename is Filter…not that she ever uses it.” She shook her head, chuckling slightly. “Mina was probably one of the worst people Miasma could have gone up against because she’s pretty much immune to his power.”

“I wish I could have seen the look on his face,” Melissa grumbled. “Stupid masks.”

Chris turned his attention back to the arena where Mina was running past a couple zombies. Miasma was now well behind her, thanks to having been blinded by that flare, and for the first time during the match he was running as fast as he could to try catching up. Unfortunately for him, it wasn’t enough as Mina reached the drop-off point and the bell rang out announcing the end of the match.

Melissa jumped to her feet and began clapping and loudly cheering for Mina. Darqueheart remained in her seat, much more sedate in her clapping but still clearly happy for her roommate.

Chris clapped a little as well, though it was hard to be enthusiastic about Mina’s victory when he didn’t even know the girl. Still, that bit about using her PK shell to filter out Miasma’s miasma had really caught his attention and made him wonder if he might be able to learn how to do something like that with his. He’d have to ask his power tutor, the Imp about that.

Domoviye
Tuesday late afternoon, Dec 11th, 2007

“OK who’s up next?” Tink asked over the speakers. “It's going to have to be a good one after that last fight. It was just boom, wham, bam, straight into a building! The zombies didn't even matter in that fight.”

The much calmer voice of her co-host, Broken, came on. “If you'll wait two seconds you'll find out. And here we go, it's... you.”

“REALLY! IT'S MY TURN! WHOOHOO! Who am I up against B?!”

“That's weird, it's just calling for you. Are they having technical difficulties?”

There was an ear piercing squeal. “This has to be a crash! They're probably putting me up against some really powerful ANTS! Or maybe a few seniors! MWAHAHAHAHA! They realize just how powerful I am and know that to challenge me, they can't have me face off with you puny freshmen and sophomores.”

“HEY!” B shouted.

Evil laughter erupted. “I will crush my opponents beneath my heel, and everyone shall know who is the greatest hero of all time!”

“For a hero, you're sounding a lot like a supervillain. A really annoying one,” her co-host said.

“How should I handle this? Do I need to be sneaky and hit 'em from below? Or just dash out there and destroy my competition in a fairy lightning smash? Maybe I should fly up high and scout them out first?”

“Hey! Bird brain! You actually need to get to the gate to find out what you're doing.”

“Oh right. Bye!” There was the sound of a door smashing open.

“HEY! TINK! You forgot your stuff!” B shouted.

The sound of wood splintering was clearly audible to listeners. “Can't forget that! Thanks B!” There was more smashing of wood.

B sighed. “OK, I guess it's just me right now. And whoever wants to walk in through the very broken door. Good job Tink.”

Rottie looked over the map of the arena he and the others had been given. The arena was a maze of tunnels, buildings, alleys and straight-aways, which would be easy to get lost in. Normally this would be a playground for Tink, but she had to guard the small base in the very center of the whole mess. So now it was up to them to use the terrain to their advantage, either getting her lost in the twists and turns, or keeping her occupied in one area while the others snuck up from behind. All they needed to do was get inside the building and hit a large button in the middle of the room and Tink would lose. The faster they did it, the worse the fairy would do.

The amount of times she'd humiliated him made Rottie want to win quickly. But he didn't exactly like the people on his 'team'. The really nasty bullies Buster, Thud, and Dump Truck, were getting ready for a fight, and spending more time talking about how fun the crash was going to be, than studying the map. Rottie knew he was no angel, and at the start of the year he'd let his spirit get the better of him too many times, but being around those pricks was making him growl.

Pucelle and Bravo were also there, the bleeding heart girl was at least taking things seriously, trying to get her idiot boyfriend to focus on the map and not on her tits. He was tempted to walk over and talk strategy, but the girl would just go on about how unfairly the world treated people like him, and how brave he was for not walking around with his head down.

Frankly he'd prefer spending time with the bullies.

He had to admit the school had picked them out carefully, all of them wanted to get a piece of Tink. So no one would hold back.

Considering who they were, it made him grin that they'd decided to make Tink the villain holding something important inside the building. For once they'd be the heroes freeing hostages, or stopping a superweapon, or something stupid like that. The school liked to make these scenarios realistic, so of course it couldn't just be an empty room and a button.

The bell rang, signaling the start of the Crash. Pucelle and Bravo charged into the arena, not waiting for the rest of them. The three stooges started looking over their maps, showing that even between the three of them they counted their combined brain cells on one hand. Growling he stalked over to them.

“Follow me, and try to keep up,” he said, grabbing their maps and tossing them to the side. He didn't want the fairy getting a hold of one and figuring out where everything was. Once he was in the arena he willed his claws to grow, going from merely dangerous looking, to something that would make a velociraptor blink.

Sniffing the air made him snort. Everything smelled wrong, they were in an old and run down section of a city, broken windows, muddy potholes, open sewers, and garbage was everywhere. It should reek, but all his nose picked up was fresh paint, oil, steel and a bit of artificial stink from the sewers. He didn't like it, neither did his spirit.

Waving to his allies, he led them to a sewer.

“No way am I going in there, it stinks!” Buster said.

“She won't find us if we go this way. We can get to within a hundred yards of the building and rush it,” he explained, resisting the growl that his spirit desperately wanted to let loose.

“We outnumber her four to one. We can beat her up and then stroll over and win.”

The other two looked at the sewer wrinkling their noses, then nodded in agreement with Buster. No one wanted to go into the disgusting looking sewer, not realizing it would probably keep Tink out of there as well.

His fur bristled. “If we get her in the sewer it will be easy to get her lost. Now do you want to play this smart and win, or waste time?”

As they were trying to decide, there was a high pitched scream from high up. Pucelle almost reached the forcefield covering the arena, then she headed downwards at very high speed, still screaming. She crashed into a large pothole full of water, hard enough to leave a crater. Before anyone could react there was a lot of splashing, and suddenly the plain white mask she always wore was flying upwards.

That's when they all saw Tink dressed in her feathery purple costume with a tiny bird mask. She was holding Pucelle's mask like a trophy.

“Oh hi there!” she shouted. “Hey Rottie, get the mask boy! Go get it!

Spinning Tink threw the mask as hard as she could across the arena. Pucelle screeched like a banshee, her beautiful face covered in muddy water, then she was running after the mask. In about two minutes, Tink had just taken one of their stronger, if absolutely neurotic, members out of the match.

“Well! Get her!” Rottie shouted.

That broke the surprise, and got the three bullies running at the fairy. Rottie didn't follow them, instead he sprinted towards the center of the arena. Someone had to keep his eye on the prize.

Bounding down an alley, he used every bit of his speed to put as much distance between the fairy and himself as possible. There was no way he could outrun her, but if those idiots would keep her busy for a few minutes, he'd be home free. As he ran he sniffed the air trying to find Bravo. The superman wannabe would be a good meat shield and distraction.

Something wrapped around his legs and he was falling to the asphalt. He hit with a painful, bone rattling thud and slid for a few feet. Trying to move his legs was impossible as something thin but impossibly strong held him tight.

“Thought you could get away from me, did you!” Tink shouted.

Rolling over he saw her rapidly tying an almost invisible wire that was wrapped around his ankles and shins. Lunging for her, she easily flew out of the way, laughing as she did. Then she grabbed his shoe and flew into the sky. Growling, he resisted the urge to claw at her. He'd survive the fall and heal soon enough, but it would really hurt and he'd be out of the fight for at least a few minutes. Better to let her put him down somewhere and make her waste time. Hopefully the three stooges would use the time wisely.

She dropped him from about ten feet up onto a building at the edge of the arena, then flew off at high speed. Growling he used his claws to slice the wire, which turned out to be metal, and freed himself. Taking a moment to get his bearings, he walked to the edge of the building and used his claws to safely slide down the brick wall to the street.

“Those idiots had better not be lost,” he muttered. 

By the time he got close to the center of the arena, he'd managed to find Pucelle who was unhappily wearing a bandana around her face. He didn't ask her where she'd gotten the cloth, it smelled like it had come out of a garbage can. And they'd found Bravo, who had somehow gotten turned around and walked in the wrong direction for over three minutes.

There was a scream from up ahead that abruptly cut off and was followed by a loud thud. They'd found the fairy and at least one of the three stooges. He looked back at Pucelle and she'd reached the same conclusion.

“Bravo, go get her attention,” she told her meathead boyfriend. “We'll be right behind you and ambush her.”

“Right!” Bravo said, puffing his chest out as if he was a superhero in a cheesy movie, the massive chin that made up half his face only added to the cheesiness. Then he was running down the alley, his large steel toed boots making him sound like a galloping horse.

He and Pucelle followed more cautiously.

They ducked when Bravo went flying through the air as if he'd been thrown. Rottie smirked, the meathead wasn't as high up or as fast as he should be, that had to mean the fairy was tiring out. Slowing down and motioning for his partner to do the same, he quietly moved forward and saw Tink sitting on a brick, her shoulders heaving as she gasped for air.

She took something from her tiny back pack and started unscrewing it. That would not be good. He charged, hoping Pucelle was right behind him.

Tink somehow saw them and flew straight up so quickly she was a blur even to his improved eyesight. She quickly unscrewed whatever she was holding and gulped it down. Her eyes began to glow, never a good sign. Then she grinned, an even worse sign.

Rottie jumped to the side as she dove down intent on mayhem. Wind blew through his fur, letting him know he had just avoided another unplanned flight. Pucelle wasn't so lucky, she couldn't even scream as Tink hit her in the belly and kept going, driving the girl straight into a wall.

Scrambling to his feet, Rottie ran for the building. If he could just hit the door and get inside, he might win the match. He heard Thud yelling at Dump Truck, and Bravo was shouting some idiotic war cry. It seemed his companions weren't totally useless.

He didn't look around to see what was happening. All that mattered was the door just a few yards away. Slamming his shoulder into the door, it shattered, sending him to the floor. Rolling to his feet, he felt tiny hands and a PK field grab his arm, Tink had a hold of him and this was going to hurt.

And then nothing happened.

Looking at his arm, he saw Tink had frozen her glowing purple eyes turned black.

The sound of sobbing filled the room. There were a dozen crying kids locked up along the walls, and the big red button was in the very middle of them. Rottie looked down at Tink again, and his blood ran cold. He didn't have danger sense, but every instinct he had screamed that he was about to die.

The fairy's eyes glowed like they were on fire, and her mouth was twisted in anger. He could smell the rage coming off of her.

Jumping backwards completely out of the building, he didn't even realize he ripped the fur from his arm until later. Raising his hands, he prepared for a real fight.

There was the sound of metal and plastic smashing. The buzzer went off signaling that Tink had lost. The fairy flew out, her grin visible through her mask. It wasn't a happy grin, more like the grin of someone who was planning bloody murder. She went straight to him, making him growl and tense up.

“Good game Rottie!” she said far too cheerfully. “You win.”

Then she was off, flying towards the gate.

Ignoring his battered companions, Rottie jogged after her. He didn't know what was wrong, but he wasn't sure if it was safe for her to be alone. He reached the gate and walked through heading for the briefing room. His sensitive ears picked up the sound of shrieking and high pitched cursing well before he reached it. A security guard met him before he could get too close to the dented door.

“You don't want to go in there,” the man said.

Something that sounded like a chair being flung against a wall told him that going in would be a very bad idea. “Is she going to be OK?”

“We called for help. You should probably go. I'm not sure how she'll feel if she sees you right now,” the guard told him.

“Yeah, all right.” Taking one last look at the door which shook as something hit it, he headed for the tunnels. He needed to get back to Twain for a nice long shower. Still, he couldn't help wondering about Tink. He'd seen her angry before, but never like that. Even at her worst, she treated everything like a game, but the sight of those kids had shown him a whole new side of her.

He hoped he would never see it again.

Domoviye
Whitman Cottage, Tuesday evening, Dec 11th, 2007

Tink flew silently into the Whitman common room, carrying a small bag bulging with jars. It was almost lights out, and the room was quiet with a small group of girls studying in a corner, two friends watching a TV show that was on low, and Darqueheart sleeping in one of the big comfy chairs, a math book on her lap.

This was a once in a lifetime opportunity. She'd been waiting for Darqueheart to let down her guard for over a month, and now with finals going on it had finally arrived. Tink wasn't about to let it slip by. The cute demon girl had turned down all her offers to make her look cute and cheerful, but now, finally, it was going to happen.

Laying out her water based paints, a small jar of water and her paint brushes, the tiny fairy forced herself into silence. She couldn't risk her model getting disturbed. This was going to be a masterpiece. Dipping her largest brush into the white paint, she got to work.

“I think I'm done,” Tink said, as she dabbed the last petal with a bit of pink to fix up a light patch. Flying backwards, she eyed the pretty horns, which were covered in baby blue, pale yellow, and clover green stripes, with pretty little flowers dotted all over them.

The girls who had been in the room had mixed reactions, some grinned in approval, others frowned. They'd spotted her half done work and kept looking over until she was done.

“Pretty good, right?” she asked.

“Beautiful,” Harpy said, not looking that impressed.

Lodestone just rolled her eyes and shook her head, while Twinkle giggled.

“Lights out girls,” Mrs. Savage called from the stairs.

Tink quickly shoved her supplies into her bag and took off while Darqueheart was still rubbing her eyes. She got back in her room and didn't quite close the door all the way.

“What are you doing?” Mary asked from her bed, where she was rubbing lotion onto her grey and black skin.

Tink held a finger up to her lips. “Hush, I want to hear.”

There was the usual sound of girls going too and from the bathroom, and saying goodnight to each other. But there was a little more giggling than usual.

And then Darqueheart's voice could be heard all over the floor. “WHAT THE HELL! WHO DID THIS?!”

Laughing so hard, she forgot to fly, Tink hit the floor and bounced. “SUCCESS!” she crowed.

Morpheus
The Village, Tuesday evening, Dec 11th, 2007

“These practical jokes are getting out of hand,” Maria Ricardo told the Imp while they ate dinner together at the Brown Moose Café. “Ever since that incident in the Quad yesterday… I didn’t mind the whoopie cushion, but the stink bomb in my classroom and that exploding apple on my desk…”

“Amateurs,” the Imp responded with a dismissive wave of her hand. “A lot of them were excited by the big show and decided to jump on the bandwagon while it’s all fresh in their minds. Most of them don’t have the creativity or dedication to be true pranksters, so they’ll just get bored of it all in a couple days and move on to something else.”

Maria let out a sigh of relief. “That’s good to know… I hope you’re right.”

The Imp cheerfully continued. “No, what you really need to be concerned about are the dedicated pranksters…”

“Dedicated?” Maria repeated, her eyes widening slightly.

“The serious pranksters,” Imp explained with a grin. “Those are the ones who see a good prank as an art form and a challenge. Those are the ones who really get inspired from each other. Prank. Counter prank. Retaliation. For the real pranksters, this could just be the start of an escalating cycle.”

Maria groaned at that. “Now, I really hope you’re wrong.”

“Oh yes,” the Imp mused with a chuckle before shifting into a bad Yoda impression. “Begun, the prank war has…”

The other teacher just glared at the Imp in response while demanding, “And why are you grinning at that?”

 

To Be Continued